Cam Ne incident

The Cam Ne incident was a highly-publicized incident which occurred on 3 August 1965 during the Vietnam War. CBS news correspondent Morley Safer followed a detachment of US Marine Corps soldiers as they undertook a search-and-destroy mission near Da Nang, planning to destory Viet Cong forces and their fortifications near the entrenched and fortified village of Cam Ne. The Marines found 267 Punji stick traps, 3 grenade booby traps, and 6 anti-personnel mines, and they then proceeded to burn down a total of 150 houses, wound three women, kill one baby, and take four prisoners after one Marine was wounded. Safer showed the agony which the Vietnamese villagers felt as their homes were destroyed, and criticized the US soldiers' conduct during the operation. On 5 August 1965, the Cam Ne incident was broadcast on CBS News, and, the following morning, President Lyndon B. Johnson called the President of CBS News and asked him if he was trying to "f--- him" and claimed that Safer was probably a Kremlin agent who had defaced the US flag, and had to be fired. A major at the Da Nang Marine Press Office called CBS the "communist broadcasting system" as an insult, but Safer interviewed some of the Marines who burned Cam Ne, and they explicitly said that they felt no remorse at their actions or pity for the villagers. When some viewers registered their shock, MACV commander William Westmoreland said that incidents like Cam Ne would be  a problem for the rest of the war, commanders needed to exercise restraint unnatural to war, and young men had to exercise uncommon judgment. The US commanders soon learned that killing civilians and destroying village property had serious consequences in the struggle for "hearts and minds".